Frame-Up (14 page)

"He’ll thrash you too."

"He won’t get a chance. Sally, please trust me. I will protect you.
There is also another thing that we’ll have to do first thing tomorrow
morning, namely get you to a family planning clinic, have you checked
out for venereal disease and given a morning-after pill. You know what
that is?" She nods, lowering her gaze. "You wouldn’t want to get pregnant at your age, would you?"

I march her back to the van, picking up her shoes, as we go. She
doesn’t make an attempt to run. Instead, she seems relieved to be taken
care of.

Wednesday, 29
^th
October, 2:30
a.m.

It turns out that Sally lives way south in West Croydon. So it is at a rather
inhospitable time when I ring the bell of her home in the somewhat bleak
street of brick houses, one looking exactly like the next, except for a
variety of curtains and entrance door colors. Sally is holding my hand. I
press it lightly for reassurance. On the drive there, she told me a little
about her home situation. There is no doubt that her father is a rather
sullen man who seems to have one answer for everything, a slap, while
her mother is meek, suffering in silence. A conventional approach,
pleading with him to treat Sally as a young adult rather than as a stroppy
six-year-old, to use reason rather than force, won’t get me far with him
I figure. I have to shock him into the realization that his behavior is
driving Sally away.

It takes a second ringing of the bell before a light turns on upstairs and
a corpulent man in a T-shirt opens the window and looks down. He does
not seem to recognize his daughter.

"What the hell do you think making a racket at this time of night? Get
lost or I call the police."

"Mr. Harper, I’m here with your daughter. Let us in," I answer firmly.

He stares at us for a moment and then his head disappears. There are
a few shouts. A smallish woman quickly looks out too.

"It’s me, mom," Sally utters, on the verge of tears.

"Thank god," the woman replies and withdraws.

"Sally, don’t be afraid. I won’t let your father hit you." I can see that
she wants to believe me but is too scared. "Just stay behind me, all right?"

The lock turns and the door is ripped open. The man charges out,
shouting, clearly intent on hitting Sally: "You slut! I’ll teach you getting
us worried like this." Seeing his way blocked, he attempts to push me
away, snarling: "Get out of my way."

I stand firm. He isn’t able to move me an inch. "No, Mr. Harper, you
are not going to hit your daughter. This is a time for talking, not for
hitting."

"Who’re you to tell me what to do? Get lost, before I belt you too."

I don’t move. As his raised hand comes down to slap me, I shift a bit
to the side, grab his wrist and use the momentum of his arm and body to
turn him around, twisting his arm sharply up his back. He yelps like a
wounded dog, struggling to get free. I tighten the hold, saying at the same
time in a low voice: "Stop struggling, and it will stop hurting."

He actually does.

"Now, let’s go inside before we wake the whole neighborhood and
then we will have a quiet chat." I shove a bit and he goes through the
door. His wife presses herself against the wall to let us pass and then
embraces Sally. The girl told me that there is a sizable table in the
kitchen. That is where I want them to be, father and mother on one side,
Sally and I on the other, with the table between us as a barrier. "The
kitchen," I order, as I let go of Mr. Harper.

Once inside the kitchen, I say: ""Mr. Harper, Mrs. Harper, I want you
to sit on that side." I point to the side nearer the wall. "And Sally and I
will sit on this side, and then we’ll talk without raising our voices,
without interrupting each other. Is this understood, Mr. Harper?"

To my surprise, he sits without a word. I quickly discover why.

"Are you from the police?" he questions.

"No, I’m a stockbroker. I worked late in the city and I found Sally in
distress after I chased away a guy who, I suspect, wanted to abduct her."

"So you’ve no right to barge in here," he shouts, while rising. "Get out,
or I’ll call the police."

"Sit!" I order sharply, while also rising. I stand half a head taller than
he. "And I said no shouting. Besides, the police will surely be interested
to investigate why your daughter has marks on her buttocks and back
from the last hiding you gave her."

Sally told me that he had belted her; the rest is just speculation, but it
seems to work. He sinks heavily onto the chair.

Suddenly I know how to shock him. "Mr. Harper, did you ever run
away from home when you were a child?" A question chosen to take the
immediate focus away from Sally and put it squarely on him.

"That’s none of your business. Who do you think you are?"

"I’ve made it my business, sir. Answer! Did you run away?"

The muscles of his jaw tighten repeatedly before he replies. "Yes, the
bastard hit me once too often."

I judged him right. He yields readily when firmly confronted. "Your
father? … And now you want to make your daughter hate you like you
hated your father? Make her run away from you too?"

He seems shaken, as if that thought has never occurred to him.

"You know what will happen to her then. She’s bound to fall into the
hands of an unscrupulous fellow, as she almost did now, and end up in the
street, selling her body. Is that what you want for your daughter? … Sally
is your only child, isn’t she? Don’t you love her?"

It takes him a moment to respond, this time in a truculent voice. "I do,
but she’s lazy. She doesn’t do her homework for school. I tell you she
needs firm discipline."

"How can you expect her to be able to concentrate on her homework
if she constantly worries where the next slap or cuff will come from?"

"It’s none of your business how I discipline my daughter."

"How can she know you love her if the only reaction she ever gets
from you is physical violence? Slapping her, shouting at her, as I just
witnessed, that’s violence, which doesn’t solve anything and only creates
resentment. There are other ways of discipline that show respect for what
Sally is, a young adult. Look at her. She’s no longer a child. Talk to her.
Reason with her. Show her what the consequences of her actions will be.
Maybe even let her participate in deciding what penalty she has to do if
she misbehaves."

"Ha, that’s a daft idea. We all know what she will do."

"I think you are wrong. You might be surprised how tough she will be
on herself, and the penalty she chooses will be constructive, like doing the
dishes for a whole week all alone … But what’s most important is that
she gets proof you care for her. Be interested in what she learns at school,
discuss her homework with her — I don’t mean do the work for her, but
ask her questions that force her to think it out." Seeing his pretty wife,
another thought occurs to me. "And mind me, sir, if your behavior drives
Sally away, you’re also likely to lose your good-looking wife. I bet she
made heads turn when you courted her." Mrs. Harper averts her gaze,
blushing. "She can still make heads turn if you buy her a few nice dresses
and take her out. Aren’t you a football man?"

The latter is a guess, but it works. For the first time something like a
smile crosses his face. "Yes, Chelsea."

"Then take Sally to a match; explain to her what’s happening. She’ll
love you for it. And take your wife along too. You’ll be envied to have
both of them with you."

"They’d not want to. They’ve never shown any interest."

"I would, dad, I really would," exclaims Sally, the first words she has
uttered since she entered the house, her face suddenly alive.

"There, you see. Give her a chance, and you’ll have your daughter
back. And now, Mr. Harper, I want your solemn promise that you won’t
hit Sally anymore. As I said, there are other ways of disciplining her, like
grounding her for a few days. Do I get that promise?"

He mutters something like a "yes"; I’m sure it cost him dearly. He
doesn’t strike me as a man who easily admits being in the wrong.

I turn to the girl. "And Sally, you’ll have to do your bit too."

She nods, blushing.

"It’s late, Sally, but I think you should take a shower before going to
bed. And I’ll see you this morning at nine for the errand we agreed. Your
mother will write an excuse for being late for school."

Mr. Harper rises alarmed, his face turning red, his voice booming
again. "What’s that about an errand? What kind of errand? What’s she
done you didn’t tell me about?"

"Sir, I have perfect hearing. There is no reason to shout. And yes, Sally
and I will visit a family planning clinic."

"Why?" He turns to her. "Did you have it off with that guy, you slut?"

"Calling her names is hardly the way to show you care for her," I barge
in. "And why do you assume that it wasn’t rape, that she wasn’t forced?
The guy had a knife." I don’t feel bad for twisting the truth. Her father
needs to be shocked.

He opens his mouth for another shout and then collapses onto the
chair. "Oh, god!" he mutters, hiding his face in his hands

"Sir, maybe an apology would be appropriate to show your concern for
your daughter."

He looks up startled and murmurs: "Sally, I’m sorry."

And then the unexpected happens. Sally rushes around the table and
hugs him, sobbing.

I leave quietly without saying goodbye and drive home. It’s too late to
resume my quest of searching through Long’s e-mail. But I feel that
helping Sally has been more important. I’m even proud of how I handled
it. I’m sure that nobody has ever confronted Sally’s father like I did.

Wednesday, 8:15
a.m.

Starved for sleep after no more than two hours in bed, I’m back at the
Boltons to take the girls to school. They are excited about the special
attention they receive. Lucy lets us go alone. Fortunately, it is dry under
a dull sky. No rain predicted. On the walk, I’m vigilant without being
obvious about it, but I see no suspicious cars or people along the streets.
I safely deposit the girls at the school gate and watch them go through the
school door.

Then I rush down to Croydon for the errand with Sally. Her mother
offers to take her and I don’t object. Both mother and daughter thank me,
and I promise Sally to visit again.

As I drive past
Il Corno d’Oro
in South Kensington, I’m suddenly
flooded by sadness. Silvio! His smile, the fire in his eyes when he looked
at me rise in my inner eye. How I long for him, the soft caresses of his
hands that set me on fire. With all the commotion over the last twelve
hours, he has slipped from my mind, but now is back stronger than ever.
It would be so easy to give in, forget about my pledge, love the man who
so suddenly and unexpectedly captured my heart, let myself be loved by
him. I’ve no doubt that he loves me. But would the guilt of breaking up
a marriage and the loss of self-esteem for abandoning my pledge not
constantly eat at me?

I’m home by nine thirty, brew myself another strong espresso. Silvio
left a message on the answering system, begging me to call back. I fight
with myself for several minutes, while drinking the coffee, but not really
tasting it. It’s as if the internal struggle has blocked my taste buds. In the
end, ‘resist’ wins out.

I get down to studying the three bank statements I downloaded the
previous night. Two entries in the October statement raise my excitement.
One is a credit of 220,000 pounds on the 2
^nd
of October, the other a debit
next day of the same amount — the day of the settlement for the
penthouse studio purchase. The credit is an Internet bank transfer without
showing further particulars, the debit names a real-estate firm as the
recipient. Where did that money come from?

Close analysis of all three statements reveals an interesting pattern of
one-hundred-pound charges paid by debit card to Leisure Services Ltd.
What could that be, I wonder? Then it dawns on me. He is either visiting
a massage parlor or using an escort service. Two to three hundred pounds
a week for prostitutes? Probably more than he spends on food. And there
he was always bragging about how women fall for him. What a pathetic
fellow! He is spending his money as fast as he earns it. It confirms my
conclusion that the equity for his penthouse can hardly have come from
savings, but that doesn’t get me any closer to an answer from where. I
will be back in the alley tonight. Maybe his e-mails might give some
clues. This time, I’ll simply download all his recent mail messages, so I
can study them at leisure in my apartment, rather than do it while I’m
logged on the Lewis network.